Dear Red

Three

Like any other queen bee, Melissa had close friends who doted on her. One of them was Kamwiga Esther, her neighbor in class. The other was Tahebwa Rachel, who was in a different stream but also in form three. When break time finally came, Melissa and Esther walked out of class to find Rachel eagerly waiting for them. Rachel let out an ear piercing scream when she saw Melissa. They hugged for a long time. "Mel! I never thought I'd see you again after you sprouted that stuff on the field! You looked like a character in Merlin!" Rachel said. Melissa smiled smugly. "I'm back now, Rachel and it's never happening again as long as I stay on my medicine," she coolly informed her friend. "Life was not the same without you," Rachel gushed, "Essie and I missed you like crazy!" Melissa was pleased by this information. I guess she secretly knew she was the glue that held Rachel close to Esther. The two girls were parallels of each other but were her friends. "Let's hit the canteen for something nice. I can't wait to catch up on all the gossip," Melissa said and led them away. I slipped away toward the school chapel to pray. Komugasa's return aside, that had been a difficult exam.

Two days later, when lunch break rolled around, I found that I was not hungry. I left my friends to go to the dining hall and decided to take a slow walk to the dorm. As I passed by the car park, I spotted a Kadic Hospital ambulance parked with the back doors open. An image flashed through my mind of the same ambulance leaving school with Komugasa a few weeks back. I quickened my steps, realizing I had been staring at the ambulance. Just as I walked by it, I heard a small scream and then a pale hand reached out of the ambulance, trembling then fell slack. I raced to the ambulance doors, curious and terrified. My eyes widened in shock and my hand flew to my mouth. Never had I seen anything so scary and wretched! Before me, Komugasa Melissa lay vulnerable, pained and tormented. She was on the ambulance bed, in her school uniform. The shirt had been unbuttoned to expose her chest. The cannular, attached to her arm had an injection connected to a bottle with medicine. A tube ran by her nose and several more tubes were plastered to her exposed chest. A machine inside the ambulance made loud erratic noises and flashed several digits at the same time. I focused on Melissa. She was ghastly pale, her eyes round, large and red in their sockets. Her mouth was twisted in pain and she was clutching wildly, watching as blood raced up the syringe in her arm. I caught her other arm, the one which was reaching out of the ambulance and climbed into it. She looked at me beseechingly and my heart broke for I didn't know how I was supposed to help her. I tucked her arm under the thin brown blanket and covered her to her waist. She was still trembling and tears were in her eyes. 

"Calm down," I soothed, wiping her tears with my handkerchief. I had to be careful not to disturb the tube running by her nose. I corrected her medicine bottle to an upright position and rubbed her hand that didn't have a syringe. She began taking slow breaths, as I had asked her and the machine continued to beep but at a lower volume. When she seemed stable, I sat back, wondering what exactly was wrong with her. Suddenly, she jerked violently. I turned to her. Her eyes, round and red again were focused on the tube leaving her hand. The blood was half way up and mixing with the colorless medicine coming from the bottle to make a green substance. Her eyes rolled back and she began to jerk, almost coming off the bed. The machine was now screaming in earnest and digits flashed at lightning speed. One of the tubes attached to her chest by plaster came off and she continued to jerk. I reached for her hand. "Melissa, I'm bringing the doctor or nurse," I said to her in a firm voice and then I leaped out of the ambulance. It took a moment to refocus on the school surroundings. For the past few minutes, the world had narrowed to Melissa, those machines, and I. I gazed at the closed infirmary door and my mind and legs began to work fast. It was lunch time, so the nurse would have gone for lunch. The doctor or whoever accompanied Melissa would be with her. I ran toward the kitchen where food was being served. I burst into the serving room. Cooks, compound cleaners and every worker in school were sitting around platters of food on low benches, eating. Students were not allowed this side of the kitchen and only a few heads turned toward me as I wend my way through benches and hot food. That's probably because nobody expected me there. I spotted the school nurse in her pristine white uniform. Beside her were two nurses in green and a doctor who had taken off his coat. I hurried up.